Sterling Makes Synon COOL
Early last month, the acquisition of Synon Corp. by Sterling Software Inc. was finalized.
What does it mean? Synon is now Sterling and will be headquartered in Dallas, while Synonís former Larkspur, Calif. headquarters will remain open as a development lab, as will its London office. Because of overlap in operations, some positions will be eliminated, mostly in marketing and financial departments.
Synon's cross-platform development tool, Obsydian, has been renamed COOL:Plex. Its AS/400 development tool, 2E, has been renamed COOL:2E. The first release of COOL:Plex is slated for October, while COOL:2E will make its debut by the end of the year.
COOL:Plex will be Sterlingís focus, just as Obsydian was Synonís focus. Its patterns technology will be integrated with the component technology of Sterlingís existing COOL products. While Obsydian used some component-based technology before, mainly Active-X controls, it will now use more large-scale components, including San Francisco and Enterprise JavaBeans. COOL:Plexís patterns technology, which sets pre-defined best practices for using components, will be shared with other products in the Sterling COOL portfolio. Sterlingís COOL:Biz workflow product will also be integrated with COOL:Plex.
No major changes will be made to COOL:2E, and Sterling says it remains committed to supporting the product. However, COOL:2E uses add-on products from companies such as CST, Silvon and Momentum Utilities, and Sterling, while maintaining those relationships, will put more of the burden of maintenance and enhancements for those integrated products on those development partners.